No easy answers to debt problem

Over coffee at the DeSoto library, Janice Buckles, an educator and lifelong Democrat, vents at the angry, shouting activists she sees on TV lately — folks who want to chop government down to size, depriving it of funds needed for the elderly, the poor and the schools.

She’s plenty worried about the federal debt, too, $13 trillion and growing — worried it will become a pretext to cut the social safety net.

"I believe in reaching out and helping others," she said. "Those people who earn more — they ought to pay more."

A half-hour away in Rowlett, in Republican territory, Suzan Fulton is sick of Washington. She’s the office manager at her husband’s financial advising firm. Last year, after 65 years on the political sidelines, she got worried enough about the direction of the country to help start a local tea party group.

Like Buckles, two years her senior, Fulton sees the national debt as a threat to the country’s future. But give Washington more money? It would just get wasted. And higher taxes would only choke off growth.

"They have done this for years," Fulton said. " ‘Oh, we are in trouble, so we have to raise taxes.’ "

There’s lots of talk lately in Washington about the hard choices facing the country as the debt hits unprecedented levels. But there’s little mystery about the menu of solutions. Spend less, raise taxes or find ways to grow the economy.

It’s as simple as losing weight. Exercise more and eat less. Everyone knows how easy that is.

The options to avert the looming fiscal crisis are just as unpleasant and unpopular, and Americans don’t seem ready to embrace any of them. Like dieters who indulge their craving for chocolate cake, they demand costly entitlement programs, a robust military and new highways — but punish leaders who try to cover the costs by raising taxes.

They readily tell pollsters that sacrifices are needed but insist somebody else should make them.

Politicians aren’t known for misreading the electorate; if voters wanted sacrifice, they would get it. So, for anyone frustrated with the paralysis in Washington, a glance in the mirror might help explain it.

NOT DOING ENOUGH

Toland and Meochia Watkins grew up in Dallas and met at Jarvis Christian College in East Texas. Now they live in DeSoto, the heart of Dallas’ only Democratic congressional district, represented by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas.

His parents are 59 and still working, still paying into Social Security — a program the Watkinses, like many Americans, doubt will be there whenever they retire. Her dad is retired military and relies on veterans benefits.

She is 38 and tests circuits at Verizon. He’s 39. As a U.S. Department of Labor data specialist, he chronicles the ebb and flow of the work force. They dress nicely. They bought a three-bedroom home seven years ago.

"We’re the so-called middle class," Toland Watkins said.

One employer he tracked grew from nothing to 50 workers. Another recently shut down a call center, lopping 200 jobs in one stroke. "He said, ‘Toland, times are hard.’ ... I hear the bad and the good of it."

Traditional Democrats, the Watkinses believe strongly in government’s role in protecting the elderly and impoverished.

Their son and daughter are 14 and 6. Before they can even drive, each is effectively saddled with $43,000 of the national debt.

"It seems like way back when, they (policymakers) used to think about the future or plan for rainy days," the mom said. "We just don’t do that anymore."

Her husband blames much of the debt problem on George W. Bush. Former President Bush, he noted, inherited a budget surplus and then boosted spending — for two wars and a new prescription drug benefit for seniors, in particular — while also insisting on tax cuts. By the time President Obama took over, the deficit was $1 trillion, so it irritates Watkins to hear Republicans point fingers at Democrats for fiscal missteps.

As an Army veteran, he backed Bush’s call to war in Iraq, until the justifications proved unfounded and no-bid contracts with well-connected defense firms drove up costs. "I was gung-ho. ... I’m like, ‘Yeah, get em!’ " he said.

Now, that’s where he would start if anyone put a budget ax in his hand.

By contrast, he and his wife would have the government spend "whatever they need" on education, he said. And they would protect Social Security and Medicare and any other programs that ease the financial burden on seniors.

Even the idea of making folks who are decades from retirement, like themselves, wait a few extra years to collect doesn’t sound right.

"I don’t feel as a country we do enough to help our elderly," Meochia Watkins said.

This year alone, the federal government will spend $1.9 trillion more than it collects — a record — on everything from pills for Grandma to new highways, unmanned drones and school lunches.

By 2020, the Congressional Budget Office says, the budget will be $5.67 trillion, with a $1.254 trillion deficit. The government will owe $20.3 trillion, the equivalent of 90 percent of the nation’s economic output. Even if borrowing costs stay at historic lows — a dubious assumption — interest alone will soak up an astonishing $1 trillion.

That’s $1,000,000,000,000 each year, from China, Saudi Arabia or other lenders, or from U.S. taxpayers, before the government can build a flood-control levee, replace an aging spy satellite, feed a hungry child or hire a new Border Patrol agent.

Smaller countries faced with such imbalances run out of options.

At risk of social and political upheaval, they resort to sharply higher taxes; fire teachers, police and other civil servants; slash pensions; and scale back public services.

"Whether you want tax cuts or more spending for education, debt is your worst enemy," said Bruce Reed, executive director of the new White House commission charged with suggesting remedies later this year.

The only bright spot, he added, is that "there are plenty of hard choices to choose from."

DOING TOO MUCH

"People get that we have a problem. It’s getting people to do anything meaningful about it that’s the issue," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the bipartisan Concord Coalition, which has long advocated for more sound fiscal policies. "There are no politically palatable options."

Voters, like many politicians, often blame deficits on relatively minor components of the budget.

Does foreign aid suck up a quarter of the budget? Many Americans think so. It’s actually less than 1 percent.

Social Security and Medicare alone account for a third of federal spending. About one-quarter goes to health care and food for the poor and payments for the unemployed. Defense is the next-biggest outlay, followed by interest on the debt itself.

Housing, highways and all the rest add up to only about 20 percent of the budget.

The bogeymen vary, depending on one’s political views.

Another surprising statistic: Last year, 11.1 percent of Americans’ personal income went to taxes — the least since 1950 and well below the peak of 18.6 percent a decade ago.

Tom Fulton, Suzan Fulton’s financial adviser husband, would eagerly gut the Education Department — which accounts for about 1.5 percent of the budget. He figures that efficiency experts could squeeze 20 percent across the board, even after decades of crusades in Washington against waste, fraud and abuse.

"There’s mismanagement in every one of these programs," said Fulton, 67.

From a converted bank building with an ancient walk-in safe, and a coin jar labeled "What the IRS Missed," Fulton spins tales and nurses the savings of a few hundred clients.

Suzan Fulton manages the office and volunteers at the local tea party and a community theater. Their son handles the computers.

"I wish I had five or six more employees, so I could fire ’em" and cut costs, Fulton joked.

The debt problem hovers over him and his clients. "It scares the heck out of everybody. We are real close to being like Greece," he said.

The comparison isn’t precise. Greece is far smaller, and its debt topped 170 percent of the national economy, almost double the current U.S. ratio. Still, Fulton said, the deadly riots that ensued when Athens cut pensions and raised taxes should alarm anyone.

"If we don’t change, the people that thought they had a free ride — there’s not going to be money to take care of anybody," he said.

More than 8 in 10 Americans tell pollsters that cutting the deficit will require sacrifice by the middle class. Just as many, however, object to slowing the growth of Social Security and Medicare benefits, and to hiking taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000.

Bridges to nowhere and $500,000 paint jobs for jumbo jets generate headlines and outrage. But earmarks also support cancer research and cutting-edge military equipment. And, contrary to popular belief, they’re carved from whatever Congress planned to spend anyway, so they don’t directly inflate the budget.